'Right-wing short-term memory of our NHS medics’ heroics is simply Breathtaking'

23 February 2024 , 17:22

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Dr Rachel Clarke, who wrote the book Breathtaking was based on (Image: Matthew Chattle/REX/Shutterstock)

Every so often you watch a TV drama that makes your chest tighten, your eyes water and your head rage.

Cathy Come Home, The Murder of Stephen Lawrence and Hillsborough are three standouts from the past 60 years. ITV has just given us two in as many months.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office enlightened the nation about the appalling criminalisation of decent people through corporate backside-covering. And this week’s Breathtaking took us back to the unremitting horrors that NHS staff worked through during Covid, as they were asked to perform miracles in conditions akin to a warzone. Minus proper armour.

Based on a book by palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke, this harrowing three-parter showed us how she and her colleagues suffered fear, guilt, inadequacy, panic, isolation, fatigue and anger as they were expected to be life-savers and bereavement counsellors despite overwhelming odds and dishonest leadership.

They were ripping up bin bags for PPE while the government was handing out multi-million-pound contracts to their friends for dud stock. They were signing each others’ wills before shifts like wartime RAF pilots before bombing missions and were terrified of sleep for fear of their demons flooding out.

Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade

Consequently, as we learned at the drama’s end, 414 healthcare workers died of Covid in the last nine months of 2020 and 60,000 NHS staff suffered from PTSD during 2021. Thousands of them are unable to work full-time today due to the mental and physical cost Covid took on them.

Their story is one of courage, dedication and love but it is also one of betrayal, as the Government lied about the seriousness of the pandemic and tossed out gimmicks like Eat Out to Help Out which they knew would rack up the casualties the NHS medics had to deal with.

Many of those away from the front line came away bruised but well compensated. Some NHS trust bosses saw their pay soar past £300k, politicians like Boris Johnson made millions out of their time in the spotlight, and top advisers like Chris Whitty and Jonathan Van-Tam were knighted.

AstraZeneca’s boss Pascal Soriot also bagged a knighthood for work on the vaccine, and in 2022 became the highest-paid FTSE-100 boss with a pay deal worth £15.3million. His package this year is £16.9m.

But what were Dr Rachel Clarke’s colleagues given outside of a weekly clap? Like most cannon-fodder after wars, just the cold shoulder.

It’s why junior doctors reluctantly begin another strike across England today demanding recognition for the vital job that they do. Their pay has taken a real terms cut of 26% since 2010 and they want to see most of that restored but the Tories will only offer them 8.8%.

Unsurprisingly, the right-wing media now refers to them not as heroic life-savers but heartless Marxists. What short memories they choose to have.

I can’t think of any professionals more deserving of their pay keeping pace with inflation than these overworked and underpaid life-savers.

I can think of few things more short-sighted than telling them their talent and dedication is unworthy of our gratitude.

We patronised them during Covid with our weekly claps, let’s not do it again by saying this drama has made us realise they are the finest among us then do nothing to respect that view.